The painter's palette

Argentina | Anno 2015

 

Thursday, July 16 | Salta – Purmamarca

Friday, July 17 | Purmamarca – La Quiaca

 

 

Thursday, July 16 | Salta – Purmamarca

Over the next three days, we’ll continue heading further north until we reach the mining town of Potosí in Bolivia on Saturday. We’ll also be ascending gradually as we begin the climb toward the puna, as the high plateau of the Andes is called in Argentina. The route we’ll be following is straightforward. For centuries, the valley of the Río Grande has been the main, if not the only, trade route between Salta and the highlands. Traders, fortune seekers, nomads, settlers, and even entire armies have known this passage.

Traders, fortune seekers, nomads, settlers, and even entire armies have known this passage

We leave Salta through the calm morning traffic. As if part of a daily ritual, Argentinians are once again lining up in long queues at the ATMs.

Just as a Japanese tea ceremony follows set rules, so does the tasting of mate, guide Gonzalo explains to us while driver Miguel leisurely steers his Mercedes Benz Sprinter van northward along the wide RN 9, through fields of sugarcane. It all starts with the accessories you need for the preparation – a thermos of hot water, a cuia or drinking cup shaped like a gourd, a silver bombilla or straw, a supply of dried yerba mate leaves, and a shoulder bag to store all this gear. The straw has a filter to prevent the finely ground leaves from being sucked up.

You fill your gourd with yerba mate and add some hot water from the thermos. It’s very important not to soak all the leaves at once, as you need to save some dry leaves for later in the day. You only start sipping through the straw when the leaves are sufficiently soaked. You also make sure that the straw’s filter doesn’t get clogged.

The gourd is passed around, and everyone gets a taste

The gourd is passed around, and everyone gets a taste. Opinions are mixed, but not too positive. Gonzalo reassures us that he also has fresh coca leaves. Chewing coca leaves works well as a prevention against altitude sickness. You chew on them for an hour and then spit them out.

The sugarcane fields continue to follow one another, even as we enter the province of Jujuy. Tobacco and sugarcane are the region’s main agricultural products. The Argentine company Ledesma, the largest sugarcane producer in South America, is particularly active here. Those who think that this means sugar is cheap in supermarkets are sorely mistaken. To ensure enough sugarcane is available for the lucrative alcohol production, the sugar ration is limited to one kilogram per person. The resulting shortage is being met by… buying Brazilian sugar. Ten years ago, a kilogram of sugar cost 0,30 dollars, now it’s 1,20 dollars.

Gasoline is also relatively expensive. Crude oil pumped in Argentina is exported to Brazil for refining, only to be sent back to Argentina. This is the case with many raw materials. Argentina has large reserves but doesn’t know how to make good use of them. The economy grows for a few years, only to decline again. Corruption is rampant, Gonzalo says, even at the presidential level.

There were plenty of companies in the 1990s, but exorbitant taxes drove them out of business. They relocated to Brazil and Uruguay.

At that time, one peso was still worth a dollar. But then came the devaluation. From then on, you had to shell out four pesos for one dollar. On top of that, the corralito imposed severe restrictions on bank withdrawals. If you had dollars in an account, they were automatically converted into pesos. So, if you had a hundred thousand dollars in the bank, you were left with only 25 000 pesos. You could withdraw that amount in weekly instalments of 250 pesos. It took almost two years to get it all out. The term corralito refers to the wooden playpen where parents sometimes place their toddlers to keep them from causing harm. Argentinians felt financially caged.

Sometimes wages were paid in meal vouchers. You then had to convert those vouchers into pesos on the black market. For 100 pesos worth of meal vouchers, you might get around 80 pesos in cash.

It’s no wonder that many people no longer trust their banks

It’s no wonder that many people no longer trust their banks. They started keeping their money under the proverbial mattress – in dollars or euros, not pesos. The minimum wage in Argentina is 8 000 pesos or 592 euros.

Gonzalo himself spends 550 dollars a month on a flat with three bedrooms, about ten kilometres from Salta. He lives there with his wife, a 9-year-old daughter, and a 14-year-old son. Buying or building a home is out of the question. Vacations abroad are unaffordable, as are foreign cars and iPhones. The borders are virtually closed to imports. President Kirchner wants to encourage the purchase of national products.

The average Argentinian lives day to day, without making plans for the future. There are plenty of benefits in Argentina – unemployment benefits, child allowances. An unemployed man with three children can receive up to 8 000 pesos a month, on top of the undeclared work he undoubtedly does.

On the puna, the high plateau of the Andes, the situation is entirely different. The people there are different too – short, with dark skin and slanted eyes, says Gonzalo. Incest is not uncommon. Due to the relative isolation of these communities, it’s often not even seen as a problem if a father has a relationship with his daughter. Alcohol is also an issue – pregnant mothers don’t abstain from drinking. Add to that the unhealthy work in the mines and the contamination of the water with minerals like arsenic, and you have a nightmarish mix.

No matter how passionate Gonzalo is in his indignation, he remains conspicuously silent on the topic of investigating judge Alberto Nisman. Still too sensitive a subject, apparently. Just hours before Nisman was set to present a case in parliament in January that was highly incriminating for President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, his body was found. The country was in turmoil, but Kirchner weathered the storm. The official line was that the man had realized his case was baseless and had taken his own life.

Meanwhile, the peaceful villages along the wide, mostly dry riverbed of the Río Grande pass by. A dense, grey cloud cover hangs low over the mountains. Shortly after ten, the clouds break completely, and the sun appears in a bright blue sky. As it turns out, these are the last clouds we’ll see today and for the next eight days. From now on, nothing but clear, blue skies.

From now on, nothing but clear, blue skies

Half an hour later, we reach Tumbaya, at an altitude of 2 034 meters. The thermometer shows a pleasant 18 °C (64 °F). We can thank the warm north wind for that, says Gonzalo. The bright blue sky is a bonus.

We continue to climb through the Quebrada de Humahuaca. This is a 175 km long valley that begins just north of San Salvador de Jujuy and leads straight northward – it’s actually the main connection between Argentina and the puna, the high plateau in the Andes. The strategic importance of this route is therefore difficult to overestimate. Inca trade caravans once followed the Inca Trail through this gorge. In colonial times, those traveling from Lima to Buenos Aires passed along this Camino Real. Even today, RN 9 is an important lifeline for economic, social, and cultural flow. In 2003, UNESCO added the Quebrada de Humahuaca, with its landscapes, villages, and culture, to the World Heritage list.

 

The valley takes its name from the Omaguaca, a loose federation of peoples such as the Tumbaya, the Purmamarca, and the Tilcara, who inhabited the valley from the 12th century onward. Agriculture, pottery, and weaving were their main occupations.

 

Tilcara – Pucará

The names of these peoples live on in the place names in the valley. One of those places is Tilcara, which proudly showcases its unique pucará. That fortified stronghold is very strategically located on an 80-meter-high hill in the middle of the valley, at the confluence of the Huasamayo and the Río Grande. Steep cliffs rise above these rivers, protecting the fortress on both flanks. A few hundred meters upstream, the Río de la Quebrada de Huichaira flows into the Río Grande from the other side. There certainly must have been no shortage of water.

 

Pucará – Restored houses

However, the place was overrun by the Incas at the end of the 15th century. In 1536, the Spaniards did the same, despite fierce resistance from Viltipoco, the most renowned of the local caciques. This marked the deathblow for the pucará.

 

Pucará – Restored house

Gonzalo leads us to a restored house of the pucará. It's a rather dark affair, with a narrow door and a tiny square window. The walls are made of natural stones stacked on top of each other without any form of binding material. The roof is partly made of cactus wood, partly of tacuara, the slightly thinner South American variant of bamboo. The door is also made of cactus wood.

 

It was certainly not a church, rather a ceremonial place

Nowadays, the situation with the cacti on this site is quite sad. Almost none of the hundreds of cacti appear healthy. It's likely that a harmful insect has gotten to them.

Higher up, a strange structure catches our attention. They conveniently call it the church, this large, rectangular space with a few side rooms and a sort of altar. But it was certainly not a church, Gonzalo tells us, rather a ceremonial place. The accurate stacking of the large natural stones that form the altar is reminiscent of the skills of the Incas. That’s no coincidence, as this ceremonial space is attributed to the Incas, not the Tilcara.

 

 

No ceremony was more important to the Incas than Inti Raymi, the festival of the sun. It took place every year during the summer solstice on December 21, when the southern hemisphere enjoys its longest day. There was dancing, eating, drinking, celebrating, and offering sacrifices to Pachamama. However, human sacrifices were never made here.

 

Modern pyramid

As an unsightly cherry on the cake, a blunt pyramid mars the highest point of the site. In memory of the archaeologists who carried out the reconstructions, it was decided in 1935 to erect this monstrosity – not discreetly at the entrance of the site, but smack in the middle of it.

 

 

We linger for a moment in the botanical garden, where a few dozen local cactus species keep each other company.

 

Maimará – Paleta del Pintor

As soon as we approach Maimará, you can’t miss it – Paleta del Pintor flaunts its colourful splendor ostentatiously. But Gonzalo knows a much better spot to get a view of this monumental painter's palette. Following him, we climb the slope of the Cementerio Nuestra Señora del Carmen. The cemetery is situated so high because, according to legend, after death, you want to be close to Tata Inti, Father Sun. But for us, it’s important to be cautious, as it’s quite steep. Before you know it, you could fall to your death. A cemetery that wants to provide for its own needs, it seems.

A cemetery that wants to provide for its own needs, it seems

Cementerio Nuestra Señora del Carmen

As if they were laid out for the brush of a giant painter, the rock layers from the Tertiary and Quaternary periods radiate their rich colours. In all shades of brown, ochre, orange, yellow, grey, and white, they ripple across the mountainside like a gigantic painter’s palette. Gonzalo has a second viewpoint in store for us, a little higher, but fortunately also a little more comfortable.

 

Paleta del Pintor

Paleta del Pintor

Shortly after two, we have lunch in Purmamarca, 2 324 meters above sea level. La Diablada serves, among other things, llama meat with a sweetish sauce. We stroll through the dusty, unpaved streets past the shops. It seems as though all the tourists from the surrounding area have flocked to this charming little town.

 

Purmamarca – Plaza 9 de Julio

Under the old algarrobo trees of Plaza 9 de Julio, the lively bustle of a busy textile market prevails. The Iglesia Santa Rosa de Lima is closed. It's a pity because the modest church from 1648 boasts a handful of paintings from the 18th-century Cuzco school.

 

Cerro de los Siete Colores

Soon, the breathtakingly vibrant colours of the Cerro de los Siete Colores unfold around us

We climb out of the city via Gorriti, in search of the cause of all this hustle and bustle. Soon, the breathtakingly vibrant colours of the Cerro de los Siete Colores, the Hill of Seven Colours, unfold around us. It’s not just one, but several mountains that offer a stunning display of surprising shapes and colours.

 

Paseo de los Colorados

 

It’s the countless colour variations combined with the bizarre geological formations that give this Paseo de los Colorados its unique character.

 

Paseo de los Colorados

 

As the sun sinks towards the western horizon in the early evening, its slanting rays create new accents on the pockmarked mountainsides. Throughout the night, a fabulous starry sky unfolds above our heads.

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Friday, July 17 | Purmamarca – La Quiaca

It’s beginning to look like our visit to Potosí might not happen. Social tensions have led to a strike and a blockade there. This has been going on for days. The strikers refuse to back down. There’s no way through. Potosí, a key road junction, is cut off from the outside world. The agency in Bolivia will have to put together an alternative program for us.

Just before eight, we set off for our last drive on Argentine soil. From a distance, we watch as the multicoloured mountains rise above Purmamarca. But at this hour, the soft morning twilight is not yet able to give the abundant colour palette of the Mirador Geológico the brilliance it deserves.

It took six hundred million years for these formations to build this landscape, partly in marine and partly in continental environments. In certain quartzite layers, you can even find fossils of shellfish and worms.

 

Huacalera – Tropic of Capricorn

Offering for Pachamama

We continue to follow the Río Grande northward – a babbling brook now, in a far too wide riverbed. It’s half-past eight when Huacalera appears, where RN 9 crosses the Tropic of Capricorn. A giant sundial marks the spot.

Such a special place deserves special rituals. Miguel prepares an offering for Pachamama. With a handful of stones, he builds a small altar in the sand. Each of us adds a few coca leaves and places our own stone on it. Then we each light a cigarette and place it upright in the sand, as blue smoke rises above the small altar. Finally, we take turns sprinkling the altar with some liquid – pomelo juice, as it happens. This is a very special moment for Gonzalo. He has decided to quit smoking and now places the remainder of his last pack of Lucky Strike on the altar.

 

 

You can immediately tell that we’re in the tropics now – the temperature is a tropical –2 °C (28 °F), and the icy wind makes it feel even colder.

 

Pollera de la Cayo

For now, the valley floor remains deprived of sunlight. The Pollera de la Coya, on the other hand, is already basking in the warm morning glow. This fully brings out the spectacular colours of this mesa on the bank of the Río Yacoraite – a yellow-ochre plateau on reddish-brown slopes. The vertical erosion gullies resemble the folds of a giant skirt, hence the name – the Skirt of the Princess. This is a relatively young formation, where fossils of trilobites have been found. However, uranium ore is also said to have been discovered in the rock, causing some concern among the local population.

What General San Martín is to Buenos Aires and General Güemes is to Salta, General Manuel Belgrano is to Humahuaca. Europeans mainly know Belgrano as the name of the Argentine cruiser that was torpedoed by the British during the Falklands War in 1982 – Gotcha screamed The Sun in a burst of subtlety.

Legend has it that Belgrano dressed cacti in clothing to make his army appear larger

In the summer of 1812, things were not looking good for General Manuel Belgrano. From Bolivia, the Spaniards descended with an army of 3 000 men through the quebrada to Humahuaca – precisely the same route we’re taking, but in the opposite direction. Belgrano’s army was less than half the size, demoralized, poorly equipped, and weakened by malaria. Belgrano decided to retreat, not without employing a scorched earth tactic. Citizens who refused to cooperate were executed. Even today, August 23rd - the day this Éxodo Jujeño began – is celebrated as a holiday in Argentina. In the following months, Belgrano managed to inflict decisive losses on the Spaniards. Legend has it that Belgrano dressed cacti in clothing to make his army appear larger.

 

Humahuaca – Cabildo

At a quarter to ten, we hobble over thick cobblestones into Humahuaca, a tourist attraction of about 15 000 inhabitants, but much less crowded than Purmamarca. We’re now over three thousand meters high. The air is already getting a bit thinner. The puna, the high plateau of the Andes, is almost within reach.

 

Humahuaca – Plaza 25 de Mayo

The beautiful, snow-white cabildo dominates the leafy Plaza 25 de Mayo. By noon, you’ll see people gathering here, Gonzalo tells us, because that’s when two green doors in the white facade will open to the sound of loud bells. A life-sized statue of San Francisco Solano will appear, raise a cross, and after giving the blessing, disappear behind the doors again. The spectacle lasts barely two minutes, but it’s incredibly popular.

 

Monumento a los Héroes de la Independencia

We stroll past the Iglesia Catedral Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria from 1631 towards the imposing Monumento a los Héroes de la Independencia. One hundred and three steps lead up to it. They are said to symbolize the 103 chasquis, the runners who swiftly carried messages for the Incas. At the very top stands an immense statue of Viltipoco, the cacique who was defeated by the Spaniards. It’s a highly romanticized representation, not entirely free from paternalism towards the indigenous population.

 

 

We leave Humahuaca behind and begin our final ascent to the puna. Thyroid problems were once common here, according to Gonzalo. A lack of iodine was the cause, as at this altitude, people rarely, if ever, ate fish. Besides, Argentinians don’t really like fish anyway, he adds. Meat is their thing. It can be any kind of meat, as long as it's beef.

Dig a hole in the ground, light a fire in it, place a cow’s head on it, cover it, and let it cook for four hours

Gonzalo doesn’t think much of Argentinian eating habits – though he enthusiastically participates in them himself. Dinner is served at 10 p.m., not at 6 p.m. in the afternoon as is reportedly common in Belgium. Breakfast is usually minimal, while lunch and dinner can be called copious. This isn’t healthy – heart problems and diabetes are on the rise. But no Argentinian can resist ribs on a barbecue. And how about tacos de cabeza? You dig a hole in the ground, light a fire in it, place a cow’s head on it, cover it, and let it cook for four hours.

 

Chapel of Gauchito Gil

We’ve seen them along the road several times, the red chapels. But we’ve never paid much attention to them. At the last minute, Gonzalo decides to make up for that. We’re surrounded by barren mountain ridges; there’s not a house or tree in sight. Yet it is not missing here either – the red chapel of Gauchito Gil, surrounded by a fence of red car tires half-buried in the ground.

 

Chapel of Gauchito Gil

Puna yellow finch

Gonzalo calls this a shrine, even though Antonio Mamerto Gil Núñez was nothing more than an ordinary gaucho who first emerged as a patriot, then as a local Robin Hood, and finally as a wildly popular saint – although that last status has never been confirmed by the Catholic Church. Every year on January 8, more than 100 000 believers visit his grave.

 

Puna – RN9

In the sparse bushes around the chapel, a puna yellow-finch is perched. You can find llamas here, Gonzalo tells us, as well as vicuñas, eagles, and falcon-like caracaras. This time he doesn’t mention spiders, which we find strange. Icicles hang in the shadows of some slopes.

A small river babbles under a layer of ice. The narrow-gauge railway that accompanies us has long since fallen into disuse. It was once part of the Ferrocarril General Belgrano, a narrow-gauge railway network that extended to Buenos Aires. Until the 1970s, you could travel from Salta to Bolivia via this railway.

Until the 1970s, you could travel from Salta to Bolivia via this narrow-gauge railway

In the distance, mountain ridges stretch out like a giant spine. This structure of vertically tilted rock layers is called the Espinazo del Diablo, the Devil’s Backbone. A bit further on, near Tres Cruces, we pass a police checkpoint.

 

Espinazo del Diablo

The highlight of the day is literally approaching – 3 780 meters above sea level. There is no more water in the small river, only patches of ice here and there. Straight stretches of road lead us to the puna. There are barely any signs of life in this desolate environment. Occasionally, we see a few grazing llamas or a stray donkey. The sky is flawlessly blue, so clear that Miguel and Gonzalo marvel at the distant view. Gonzalo points to a slope that is very popular with sandboarders – snowboarding, but on a sand dune.

For the rest of the event, a man with paper horns takes on the role of the bull

Just before noon, we enter the puna at Abra Pampa. This place was once called La Siberia Argentina, but that's not a name that attracts people, so they renamed it Abra Pampa. In colonial times, this area was owned by a marquis. A fanatical lover of bullfighting, he wanted to introduce the spectacle here. But bulls are not plentiful in this region, as Gonzalo points out. We had already noticed that – aside from the puna yellow finch, we haven't seen a single living creature. During the bullfight held here on February 2nd during the feast of the Virgen de la Candelaria, exactly one (1) real bull participates. For the rest of the event, a man with paper horns takes on the role.

 

Puna – Llamas

We continue further north along a mostly straight road. The mountains have receded into the horizon. In the valley, patches of grass and the disused railway track are visible. The smooth asphalt occasionally tempts Miguel to speed up, but a double beep from his GPS quickly brings him back to reality. Llamas are grazing on the sparse tufts of grass, and now and then, a solitary adobe farmhouse appears.

 

Llamas with shepherdess

It’s a quarter to one when we reach La Quiaca, the Argentine border post. The thermometer reads 9,5 °C (49 °F). We say goodbye to Miguel and Gonzalo and welcome Martín, our new guide. We’re surprised that an Argentinian from La Quiaca will be guiding us through Bolivia, but Martín reassures us by explaining that his grandmother is Bolivian. Plus, he’s been doing this job for twenty years.

It only takes twenty minutes to get an exit stamp from Argentina and an entry stamp for Bolivia. On foot, we cross the bridge over the Río de la Quiaca into the Bolivian town of Villazón.

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Jaak Palmans
© 2024 | Version 2024-08-25 14:00

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